Vitamin Cart is the new, easy way to improve your nutritional habits. With it, you can manage your grocery list, view its nutritional content (with a breakdown of 43 vitamins, minerals and other nutrients), compare your daily intakes to the recommended values, compare the nutrient patterns of different foods, and search for foods that will help overcome deficiencies. Prints separate weekly, biweekly and monthly shopping lists. Uses the USDA food and nutrition database, with over 7000 foods.

The nutrient intake estimates provided by Vitamin Cart will be most accurate for groups in which all members eat the same foods in the same amounts. Naturally, that's unlikely to occur in any group larger than a couple. So in larger groups, Vitamin Cart's nutrient intake estimates can only serve as very rough estimates.

To ensure that your actual nutrient intakes come as close as possible to Vitamin Cart's estimates, it is important that you spread the consumption of each food throughout the month.

The daily recommended intakes that Vitamin Cart uses are valid for most people. However, they are not valid for young children, the elderly, and pregnant or lactating women.

General method of use

If you haven’t done so yet, browse the reports while there is still data in the shopping list. You will be deleting all the items in the list soon, so now is a good time to familiarize yourself with Vitamin Cart’s features.

Next, look through your pantry and make a written list of the groceries you buy. In each row, write the net weight listed on the container you buy the food in, its cost (at least a guess), the number you purchase, and how often you purchase it (weekly, biweekly, or monthly). When your list is reasonably complete, you are ready to go the next step.

Now you will delete all the items currently in the Vitamin Cart shopping list. Click on “File > Delete all items in list”. Press “Yes” when the warning pops up.

You are now ready to begin adding items to the list. To do so, click on “Edit > Search foods by name”. Use keywords to search the food database until you find the food that matches best with the food you buy. When you are ready to add a food to the shopping list, click on “Paste food in new row”.

It is important that you choose foods that match well. Consider what would happen if someone who purchases milk in a jug chose to use powdered milk in the grocery list. Since powdered milk is much more concentrated, one kilogram of powdered milk has much more nutrients in it than one kilogram of liquid milk. This mistake would make the reports badly inaccurate.

On the other hand, it may be advantageous to choose cooked items even when you purchase raw items. That way, you will account for the loss in nutrients when the food is cooked. But this is only a good idea if, when the food is cooked, it remains roughly the same weight, not absorbing or releasing much water. For example, potatoes would work, but rice would not.

Next, you will need to tell Vitamin Cart how many meals this shopping list makes. Click on “File > Options” and fill out the textboxes in the form. In the textboxes for number of meals, use the total number. In other words, if the shopping list feeds two people and they each eat out two times a month, then enter four meals eaten outside.

Now you are ready to start optimizing. Click on “Reports > Nutrient Distribution”. Each column in this report corresponds to a nutrient, and the largest circle in a column corresponds to the food that is providing the most amount of that nutrient. Nutrients which have exceeded the recommended limit will appear in red, and nutrients which have not met the daily recommended intake will appear in blue. Consider cutting back on the foods that have the largest red circles. Likewise, consider increasing your consumption of the foods with the largest blue circles.

If you need to increase the intake of a certain nutrient, but you don’t want to eat more of the foods in your list which are rich in that nutrient, you may search for other foods that could help. To do this, click on “Edit > Search foods to maximize nutrient”.

If you are concerned about cost, you can use the Nutrients per Cost report to identify foods that provide little nutritional benefit for their cost.

If the item you purchase comes in a container, use the net weight listed on the container in the “Package Weight” field.

If the item you purchase is sold by weight, you will do things a little differently. For example, if you buy it by the kilo, then put “1” in the “Package Weight” field, put “kg” in the “Package Unit” field, put the price per kilo in the “Package Price” field, and put the number of kilos you buy in the “Amount to Buy” field.

If the item you purchase is sold by the unit (for example mangoes for 80 cents each), then the best thing to do is to put the average weight of a mango in the “Package Weight” field, and enter the other fields accordingly.

To change the order of items in your shopping list, use the arrows at the bottom left of the form.

To view additional information about the cost of and calories in items in your list, click on "View > Show Information Panel." When the information panel is open, the shopping list screen slows down, so you may want to close it when it's not in use.

The bottom right of the form shows the food selected for the current item in the shopping list. A food must be selected for the item to affect the nutritional reports. The only report which shows non-food items is the shopping list report. To select a food for an existing item, highlight the item in the shopping list, then use one of the search screens under “Edit > Search foods …” When you have found a food, use the “Paste in current row” button.

This form helps Vitamin Cart know how much food each person eats in a day. To do this, it needs to know how many people eat food mainly from the shopping list, how many meals they eat out per month, and how many meals are provided per month to people not eating from the shopping list. In the textboxes for number of meals, use the total number. In other words, if the shopping list feeds two people and they each eat out two times a month, then enter four meals eaten outside.

If you want the reports to show intake quantities for individual amino-acids, then select the checkbox at the bottom.

This form is used to search for foods and apply them to rows in the shopping list. To use it, search by keywords (like with an internet search engine), select a food, and click on “Paste in new row” or “Paste in current row”. “Paste in current row” will over-write the food in the current row of the shopping list, without changing the name or the quantities.

It is important that you choose foods that match well with what you buy. Consider what would happen if someone who purchases milk in a jug chose to use powdered milk in the grocery list. Since powdered milk is much more concentrated, one kilogram of powdered milk has much more nutrients in it than one kilogram of liquid milk. This mistake would make the reports badly inaccurate.

On the other hand, it may be advantageous to choose cooked items even when you purchase raw items. That way, you will account for the loss in nutrients when the food is cooked. But this is only a good idea if, when the food is cooked, it remains roughly the same weight, not absorbing or releasing much water. For example, potatoes would work, but rice would not.

Use this form to search for foods rich in selected nutrients. When you have selected a food, you can click on “Paste in new row” or “Paste in current row”. “Paste in current row” will over-write the food in the current row of the shopping list, without changing the name or the quantities.

To be able to enter your own shopping list in Vitamin Cart, you will need to register your copy of Vitamin Cart. Go to the Vitamin Cart website and click on register, which will take you to share-it.com. Use the Computer ID to purchase a registration key. The registration key is made from the Computer ID, in such a way that your registration key will only work on your computer. Save the registration key in a safe place, in case you have to re-install Vitamin Cart someday.

The “Nutrient Distribution” report shows how much of each nutrient each food is providing. Each column in this report corresponds to a nutrient, and the largest circle in a column corresponds to the food that is providing the most amount of that nutrient. Nutrients which have exceeded the recommended limit will appear in red, and nutrients which have not met the daily recommended intake will appear in blue. Consider cutting back on the foods that have the largest red circles. Likewise, consider increasing your consumption of the foods with the largest blue circles.

Note that the “Nutrient Distribution” report takes into account how much of a food you consume. The similar looking reports do not, showing only nutrients per cost, per weight, per weight and cost, or per calorie.